Choosing+&+Organizing+Content

= This is the fun part! =

Choosing Content
Suggestions: (from Trudy) At UMS, I ran a report in TLC of books that had circulated more than x times in the past x years. (The report is titles "Items Checked out X or More Times by Location, Holdings Code(s), and Date Range") That gave me some good ideas on what was most popular.

Amazon also has some good lists, and of course as soon as you choose something, it suggests more based on your choice.

I also have a wish list going with student suggestions. I have always had one on my website and on a clipboard on the counter, and I tell students to let me know print or digital--or both!

Don't forget that many classics are available for free from Amazon!

As for keeping track of your ideas--Amazon will not allow you to use a shopping cart to store digital content, only physical content. But you can use their Wish List feature. It is very awkward to use, as you cannot see the price, nor sort by price, nor even know your running total, but at least it provides a place to store links to the ones you have chosen. There are a few ways to view your wish list. I prefer the compact view sorted by title. I found I used a combination of that and Marsha's spreadsheet to keep track of what I wanted to order and prioritize my selections.

Organizing Content
It is very easy to move Content from one Kindle to another if you change your mind.

At UMS, I decided to organize my content by Genre. Here are the six I chose to start with:
 * 1) Fantasy/Sci Fi Faves
 * 2) 8th Grade Faves (May contain mature content) (I will limit this one to 8th Graders.)
 * 3) Newbery and 7th Grade Faves (All UMS 7th grade LA classes do Newbery Projects)
 * 4) BES and 6th grade Faves (All UMS 6th grade LA classes do BES Projects, current year and past year's titles)
 * 5) Guys Read Faves
 * 6) Chick Lit Faves